Superbugs, bacteria that are immune to multiple antibiotics, pose a great challenge to modern medicine. Researchers from the B CUBE – Center for Molecular Bioengineering at TUD Dresden University of Technology and Institut Pasteur in Paris identified a weakness in the bacterial machinery that drives antibiotic resistance adaptation. Their findings, published in the journal Science Advances, could pave the way to boosting the effectiveness of existing antibiotics.
Since the discovery of penicillin in 1928, antibiotics have changed medicine, allowing us to easily combat bacterial infections. However, with the invention of antibiotics, we have also entered a never-ending arms race with bacteria. They adapt rapidly to drugs, rendering many existing treatments ineffective. Such antibiotic-resistant bacteria, often dubbed “superbugs”, pose a critical threat to patients with chronic illnesses and weakened immune systems.
Rather than developing new antibiotics, we wanted to understand exactly how bacteria adapt their resistances.”
Prof. Michael Schlierf, study leader, research group leader at B CUBE, TU Dresden
In doing so, the groups discovered why it takes longer for some bacteria to develop antibiotic resistance, while others adapt very quickly. Their findings open up new possibilities for the development of counter-strategies.
A genetic toolbox in action
“Our work focuses on the integron system, a genetic toolbox that bacteria use to adapt to their environment by exchanging genes, including those for antibiotic resistance,” says Prof. Didier Mazel, research group leader at Institut Pasteur in Paris, whose group worked together with the Schlierf team.
The integron system is like